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 A Culture of AtrocityPosted on Jun 18, 2007
By Chris Hedges All troops, when they occupy and battle insurgent forces, as in Iraq, or Gaza or Vietnam, are swiftly placed in what the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton terms “atrocity-producing situations.” In this environment, surrounded by a hostile population, simple acts such as going to a store to buy a can of Coke or driving down a street means you can be killed. This constant fear and stress leads troops to view everyone around them as the enemy. The hostility is compounded when the enemy, as in Iraq, is elusive, shadowy and hard to find. The rage that soldiers feel after a roadside bomb explodes, killing or maiming their comrades, is one that is easily directed over time to innocent civilians who are seen as supporting the insurgents. It is a short psychological leap, but a massive moral one. It is a leap from killing—the shooting of someone who has the capacity to do you harm—to murder—the deadly assault against someone who cannot harm you. The war in Iraq is now primarily about murder. There is very little killing. American Marines and soldiers have become, after four years of war, acclimated to atrocity. The American killing project is not described in these terms to the distant public. The politicians still speak in the abstract of glory, honor and heroism, of the necessity of improving the world, in lofty phrases of political and spiritual renewal. The press, as in most wars, is slavishly compliant. The reality of the war—the fact that the occupation forces have become, along with the rampaging militias, a source of terror to most Iraqis—is not transmitted to the American public. The press chronicles the physical and emotional wounds visited on those who kill in our name. The Iraqis, those we kill, are largely nameless, faceless dead. Those who kill large numbers of people always claim it as a regrettable but necessary virtue. The reality and the mythic narrative of war collide when embittered combat veterans return home. They find themselves estranged from the world around them, a world that still believes in the myth of war and the virtues of the nation. Tina Susman in a June 12 article in the Los Angeles Times gave readers a rare glimpse into this side of the war. She wrote about a 17-year-old Iraqi boy killed by the wild, random fire unleashed by American soldiers in a Baghdad neighborhood following a bomb blast. These killings, which Iraqis say occur daily, are seldom confirmed, but in this case the boy was the son of a local Los Angeles Times employee. Iraqi physicians, overseen by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, published a study last year in the British medical journal The Lancet. The study estimated that 655,000 more people than normal have died in Iraq since coalition forces invaded the country in March 2003. This is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that President Bush gave in a speech last December. Of the total 655,000 estimated “excess deaths,” 601,000 resulted from violence. The remaining deaths occurred from disease and other causes, according to the study. This is about 500 additional violent deaths per day throughout the country. Lt. Col. Andrew J. Bacevich, a Vietnam veteran who is a professor of international relations at Boston University, estimated last year that U.S. troops had killed “tens of thousands” of innocent Iraqis through accidents or reckless fire. Official figures have ceased to exist. The Iraqi government no longer releases the number of civilian casualties and the U.S. military does not usually give reports about civilians killed or wounded by U.S. forces. “It’s a psychological thing. When one U.S. soldier gets killed or injured, they shoot in vengeance,” Alaa Safi told the Los Angeles Times. He said his brother, Ahmed, was killed April 4 when U.S. troops riddled the streets of their southwestern Baghdad neighborhood with bullets after a sniper attack. War is the pornography of violence. It has a dark beauty, filled with the monstrous and the grotesque. The Bible calls it “the lust of the eye” and warns believers against it. War allows us to engage in primal impulses we keep hidden in the deepest, most private interiors of our fantasy life. It allows us to destroy not only things but human beings. In that moment of wholesale destruction, we wield the power of the divine, the power to give or annihilate life. Armed units become crazed by the frenzy of destruction. All things, including human beings, become objects—objects to either gratify or destroy or both. Almost no one is immune. The contagion of the crowd sees to that. Human beings are machine-gunned and bombed from the air, automatic grenade launchers pepper hovels and neighborhoods with high-powered explosives, and convoys tear through Iraq, speeding freight trains of death. These soldiers and Marines have at their fingertips the heady ability to call in firepower that obliterates landscapes and villages. The moral universe is turned upside down. No one walks away uninfected. War thrusts us into a vortex of barbarity, pain and fleeting ecstasy. It thrusts us into a world where law is of little consequence. It takes little in wartime to turn ordinary men and women into killers. Most give themselves willingly to the seduction of unlimited power to destroy. All feel the peer pressure to conform. Few, once in battle, find the strength to resist gratuitous slaughter. Physical courage is common on a battlefield. Moral courage is not. Military machines and state bureaucracies, which seek to make us obey, seek also to silence those who return from war and speak the truth. Besides, the public has little desire to puncture the mythic, heroic narrative. The essence of war, which is death, is carefully masked from view. The few lone journalists who attempt to speak the truth about war, to describe the experience of constantly being on the receiving end of American firepower, soon become pariahs, no longer able to embed with the military, dine out with officials in the Green Zone or get press credentials. And so the vast majority of the press lies to us, although not overtly; it is the lie of omission, but it is a lie nonetheless. The veterans who return, even if they do not speak about the atrocities they have committed or witnessed in Iraq, will spend the rest of their lives coping with what they have done. They will suffer delayed reactions to stress. They will endure, as have those who returned from Vietnam, a crisis of faith. The God they knew, or thought they knew, failed them. The high priests of our civic religion, from politicians to preachers to television pundits, who promised them glory and honor through war betrayed them. War is always about betrayal, betrayal of the young by the old, of idealists by cynics and of troops by politicians. This bitter knowledge of betrayal is seeping into the ranks of the American military. It is bringing us a new wave of enraged and disenfranchised veterans who will never again trust the country that sent them to war. We make our heroes out of clay. We laud their gallant deeds. We give them uniforms with colored ribbons for the acts of violence they committed or endured. They are our false repositories of glory and honor, of power, of self-righteousness, of patriotism and self-worship, all that we want to believe about ourselves. They are our plaster saints, the icons we cheer to defend us and make us and our nation great. They are the props of our demented civic religion, our love of power and force, our belief in our right as a chosen nation to wield this force against the weak. This is our nation’s idolatry of itself.
Prophets are not those who speak of piety and duty from pulpits—there are few people in pulpits worth listening to. The prophets are the battered wrecks of men and women who return from Iraq and find the courage to speak the halting words we do not want to hear, words that we must hear and digest in order to know ourselves. These veterans, the ones who dare to tell the truth, have seen and tasted how war plunges us into barbarity, perversion, pain and an unchecked orgy of death. And it is their testimonies, if we take the time to listen, which alone can save us.
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By nahida, June 21, 2007 at 7:01 pm # Osama Bombsalot What an imagination!! Couldn’t you try a bit harder though just to be a little more convincing??
By Osama Bombsalot, June 21, 2007 at 6:05 pm # How DARE the infidels defend themselves against the holy Jihad of Allah, as instructed by the prophet Mohammed? They shall feel our wrath-- and all our Muslim brethren support us, either openly or in secret! And your pacifist fools think we want peace with you, if you just leave us alone--- you, the infidels who deny the true Islamic faith! We want you DEAD!
By bogi666, June 21, 2007 at 5:12 pm # Bush has declared this to be a war of Good Vs. Evil and we, the U.S., being the Good has been concocted into a perverse logic, which is: Whatever Bush does is to protect us from the Evil is Good even if our Good must engage in Evil to protect our Goodness, because it is Good.This presupposes that our Good is innate even though the Good can only be protected by the Evil, which is inherently bad.But if our inherent Good necessitates using Evil, that is Good. Robert Greenwald discusses this topic. This is the reason for our Constitution which means that the Good vs. Evil argument was a topic when the Constitution was written and it was written, especially the Bill of Rights,so as preserve the presence of mind necessary for the continuation of a country of laws, Constitutional law, rather than the invoking of situational ethics which is what Bush and the Republicans are doing now. Thus we’ve become a lawless nation without principals. The Bush maladministration is reinventing the wheels of law where it already exists in the very Constitution they have sworn to preserve and protect. They are mental pygmy’s.This is what happen when a country is ruled by ego, it becomes authoritarian promising to protect us from Evil because we are Good even if we employ Evil for our own Good, a perverse logic.
By Chris, June 21, 2007 at 12:01 pm # I think the bottom line is this: The fault lies with the current fascist regime in the White House that orchestrated the events of 9/11 as an excuse to unconstitutionally invade the Middle East in order to spread U.S. hegemony and Empire into the region, on its way to global domination. Our fascist Bush-o-lini has sent our troops to their deaths and the fault lies with him and the shadow government which controls him and every other U.S. politician and European leader in the world. Bush has created the Patriot Act in order to dismantle our Constitution and strip us of our liberties, to make it easier to carry out his plans of global domination with or without his citizen’s approval. All other atrocities and crimes follow from this man. and yes, our troops are indeed committing crimes because they’ve been placed into a hostile environment which warps the perception and thus the moral code of each individual combatant. It’s about time we stop goose-step marching to the beat of our American government’s propaganda songs, and wake up to reality, before it is too late.
By Daniel Newby, June 21, 2007 at 9:51 am # In Iraq, soldiers paid, in part, for every stupid vote, every bureaucrat’s tolerated lie, and every other dismal political decision made in America. In time, many will realize , as we do, that our politicians do not support the ideals they claim to believe in public settings. And few of us — military soldier or activist soldier — will ever enjoy the Souza fluff-world of flag waving and apple pie the way we used to.
By moni, June 20, 2007 at 1:44 pm # #79507 N*a*h*i*d*a Thank-you, very poignant poetry. The poetry, the image, the verse, the once-colorful child in the casket ,,, one can only weep.
By Brian Armstrong, June 20, 2007 at 7:31 am # This story destroys its own credibility by claiming that US troops are deliberately killing innocents-- which is the definition of “murder.” Otherwise he’s insisting that every war be free of innocent deaths-- which is equally ridiculous. If the Iraqis want Americans gone, they have yet to vote for it.
By Peter RV, June 20, 2007 at 6:58 am # Ref.#79348 by Rob
By EE Roberts, June 20, 2007 at 4:17 am # ““how would all these right wing and knee jerk patriots feel if the foriegn army was in our country” They would be making excuses for the occupiers and sucking up to them. The faux patriots who love war as long as they aren’t in danger are cowards, lickspittles who grovel before whoever they see as holding the whip. They would be the first to claim that the occupiers were the true American authorities and that anyone resisting them are “terrorists"or unpatriotic.
By Rob, June 19, 2007 at 4:53 pm # Peter RV, it might be a bit too much to claim that an Iraqi insurgent is a superior moral human being than an American soldier. I agree more or less with your point, the insurgent certainly has much greater reasons for fighting(land and/or family) than the American soldier(college money, jingoistic patriotism, or the the thrill of combat). However, the problem is that no two or three insurgents are the same. The Sunni wahhabist fighter who blows up a Shiite wedding reception outside of a mosque is not a superior human being. Nor is the Baathist loyalist who kidnaps a politically neutral foreign journalist who is simply there to report on the strife of his country with the intent to decapitate that journalist on tv. The insurgent who instructs children to act as decoys or distractions during an attack cannot possibly hold any moral ground. Neither does the Arab insurgent who attacks Kurds purely out of blind racism.
By Matt, June 19, 2007 at 1:46 pm # Re: #78995 by Matt on 6/18 at 11:49 am Lefty: “That’ll teach ‘um not to try to steal Dick Cheney’s oil!” No, Lefty. For the fanatically pro-Israel neoconservatives (including gentiles like Cheney and Woolsey) who planned this war and lied us into it, this is all about Israel and about hating Arabs and Muslims. The racist book “The Arab Mind”, by Zionist supremacist Raphael Patai, was their bible on how to “deal with” these inferiors. The murderous Zionist hatred of Arabs and Muslims is written all over the whole enterprise. Your lovely “progressive” Israel-firsters are the prime culprits. Lefty: either you do not know the importance of that noxious racist book in the literature of zionism and neoconservatism, or you are being disingeniuous. Which is it?
By Peter RV, June 19, 2007 at 12:50 pm # Chris Hedges’ analysis of the American war psychology is good as far as it goes but it misses an entire dimension - It is strictly from the American point of view.
By Dale Headley, June 19, 2007 at 11:43 am # You won’t see this picture in the mainstream, corporate-run media. Why? because the military doesn’t care; which doesn’t care because Bush doesn’t; who doesn’t care because Congress doesn’t; which doesn’t because the American people don’t. After all, what’s one more “towel-head” more or less?
By Bert, June 19, 2007 at 11:12 am # Bluntly spoken, democracy’s in the outhouse when Exxon’s in the White House, and it’s too bad that there’s not more people who’ve served in the service with similar levels of intestinal fortitude as exemplified by Lt. Watada, who bluntly refused to serve in what he deemed to be an immoral war. There is an impeachment movement, one website to reference is http://www.impeachbush.org, but there’s others you can find on your own, and yes, to push for impeachment is to swim against the political and economic tide, and might end up being a futile gesture, yet it is also a principled gesture, and without principles, the whole of our country is nothing but a bunch of Bernanke’s consumers willing to hire mercenaries to rob resources from other countries for money. In THAT context, life IS irrelevant, specifically the lives of the people in those countries. Page back in the history books to Vietnam, and read about dear old American Standard Oil, and Dick ‘5 deferments’ Cheney, as well as George ‘awol’ Bush. Indeed, there are some Serious Problems with this administration, at least to the eye of the outside observer, the uncompensated, unco-opted masses, the people that do not partake in the petroleum industry’s blatant self-enrichment at-all-costs enterprise. ‘L’etat, c’est Texaco’ just doesn’t cut it, and more and more people are becoming increasingly disenfranchised with the entire business, yes, business, of the Iraq war. If you really think about it, in one way the real culprit, the real killer here, is something that Ralph Nader has been talking about for years. Yes, the automobile. THAT thing you have to drive in everyday to get to your job because that’s about what our country’s set up for, these days, and in addition to the cars, you also have to look at economic inertia. The direction our country is headed in, Bush’s magic ‘growth’(malignant growth, by some people’s measure), implies more roads, more cars on those roads, and more people dying in/under those cars, some 40,000 people a year, by some estimates, as well as the NHTSA people’s educated guess, ask your insurance agent for the Real Story, which you’ll probably only get under BushCo-brand ‘rendition’, but bottom line is that speed kills, and it’s because of the cars, and frankly the Iraq war is because of the cars too, indirectly, because without gasoline, which is derived mostly from these oil imports, the whole show comes to a short halt, businesses grinding to a halt, cats and dogs sleeping together, the whole 9 yards, and we can’t have THAT, now, can we? Indeed, not. So, we’re left with a moral choice, and something of an engineering challenge as well, how do you move a 3,000 pound vehicle from point A to point B without importing petroleum from any number of a list of 3rd world countries? Ethanol’s one answer, hydrogen’s another, bio-diesel, electricity, I’ll bet there’s even someone working on a solar-flywheel system or something, I’d buy one of those in a hot second, go park under a street light and recharge your car, let’s see em charge you for THAT! LOL Bottom line is, if you don’t like seeing people get shot by greedy oil companies using our military to give them legitimacy, go out and take a Good Hard Look at what’s parked in your driveway, go make some coffee, and have an hour-long sit-down with friends and family, and start working on a new ‘way forward’ for yourself that doesn’t involve adding fuel to the flames in Iraq by giving money to oil companies who’ve got a ‘conscience deficit’ etc...if you think you can master basic horsemanship, you can probably find someone willing to sell you a worthy steed capable of carrying you off into the energy independence sunset. Warning: Some shovel-work required, and horses respond poorly to riders with bad manners. Sometimes violently. Ow! LOL
By Fed-Up, June 19, 2007 at 8:59 am # Aside from the ideological/moral arguments I have read on this post, please consider the pragmatic arguments for not waging unnessary war. Ask yourself who profits? Certainly not the poor grunt and his/her family, not the average taxpayer, and certainly not the unwitting civillian in the middle of the carnage. The defense industry of course. Its a cancer on our nation. Read “War is a Racket” by General Smedly Butler. It was written long before the military industrial complex became the unruly beast it is today. Old Smeds had it right on way back then.
By michael, June 19, 2007 at 8:35 am # MARIAM RUSSELL As a texan and with family in south I have heard all that crap about how bad the south was treated how their rights where trampled and how unfair it was. My response has allways been how many rights did the slaves have how where they treated ???? War is hell and all the south had to do was let the slaves go and there would have been no war. But the where greedy and did not want to give up the lifestyle. Just like today most americans wont give up the hummers and other gas guzzlers for the good of the world. Instead we back the rape of another country just for cheap gas.
By Dan Stewart, June 19, 2007 at 7:01 am # Mike Mid-City: I appreciate you and other vets speaking out against the Iraq war. As for Pope John-Paul II, yes he did speak against the war several times, not as much as he did about certain social issues, however. But, what he didn’t do was tell Catholics that the Iraq war failed to meet the principles of Just War and therefore to participate in or support it constitutes mortal sin.
By John Lowell, June 19, 2007 at 6:37 am # Lest Hedges make a mockery of this piece, let him not forget the most basic of killings visited upon human beings: Embryonic stem-cell research and abortion. Miss those and you’ve missed ‘em all Mr. Hedges. John Lowell
By Diane Anderson, June 19, 2007 at 4:43 am # If you are so prescient, Anonomous Coward, about what you think some poor dead baby would grow up to do, perhaps you could save the rest of us all the heart-searching and hand-wringing and tell us how this war is going to end. ‘Anonymous Coward’? Very apt.
By Melissa, June 19, 2007 at 2:14 am # When I see that dead baby, all I can think of is my grandchildren. If an army of invaders came to my country and killed one of them , I would fight them until they left or until I died. Would you not all do the same?
By Elizabeth J. Young, June 18, 2007 at 7:32 pm # What nobody has mentioned except NamViet is “we are going to pay big time for all this”. We teach this young kids to fight and kill and they do. When they get home, how do they “forget” what they have done? How do they become “normal” again. They don’t. That is the point; we have destroyed the moral balance and innocence of a lot of our young people. Where is our plan to help them come to terms with what they have done? Add Your Comment |
Newsroom Carnage Continues at The Washington Post
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